Piano moving to New Mexico

For those of you who may not know it, my husband plays piano and guitar. In a recent post I wrote about buying a used piano at a garage sale for him. Here is some information from the wonderful piano technician whose work has made it sounds great.

"Now that you've had some time to play it, how is the piano working out for you? Thanks for your help with shimming the bottom board. That's not quite the level of craftsmanship they taught us at the North Bennet Street School (!), but in this case I think it's an acceptable field repair.

Since you're both Realtors, I thought I'd share this Q&A with you that I'm adding to my website, to help protect pianos that people bring in from out of state. I'm a big fan of humidity control, because I've seen what humidity swings can do to wood (as you know from your woodworking experience, as well). I was talking to Jim Boren over at the Piano Source the other day, and they heard a loud crack as a soundboard in a new Chinese piano let go. Apparently the wood wasn't seasoned properly.

Q: I've just moved my piano to New Mexico. Will the dryness here damage it?

A: Possibly; it depends. Sudden changes in humidity can damage pianos and anything else made of wood. Even though it's dry, the evaporative ("swamp") coolers we use here can quickly add a lot of moisture to the air. Cycling between wet and dry is particularly harmful. Pianos may sound better at a constant 45% relative humidity rather than a constant 15%. This is both because dry wood shrinks, causing less tension in the soundboard assembly, and because felt hammers change in characteristics such as resiliency with humidity.

Any brand new piano should be okay here; manufacturers typically dry wood down to a lower level than we get here. But if a piano has acclimated to a more humid climate for a year or two, an abrupt humidity change may in fact be harmful; wood cracks when it dries quickly. It's better if the change is slower. A way to avoid this is to use room humidifiers, or better still, to install a humidity control system right in the piano (see http://www.pianolifesaver.comContact me for more information on this.

These systems are available only from technicians, as the installation has to be customized for each piano. Generally they run about $400 for uprights, and $600 for grands (parts and labor), so it's not cost-effective for every piano (and yours has already adjusted to this environment). Room humidifiers can work; I'm not trying to come on with a hard sell here. But as you've heard me say over and over on Pianoworld, humidity control can only prevent damage, it can't repair it, and I sure like to let people know before it's too late. Damage can happen in less than a month."